A jazz icon, a country songwriter, a Canadian journeyman, an acid-house flashback and more — there aren’t a lot of new music books arriving this week, but there is plenty of variety. So it could be worse. Read on:
Country Music’s Greatest Lines: Lyrics, Stories & Sketches from American Classics
By Bobby Braddock & Carmen Beecher
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Bobby Braddock, the only living songwriter to have written No. 1 country songs in five consecutive decades, celebrates standout lines in more than 80 country masterpieces. Unique stories give the reader a behind-the-scenes look at classics from Hank Williams, Bill Anderson, Roger Miller and Merle Haggard, as well as 21st-century icons like Alan Jackson, Taylor Swift and Eric Church. Artist Carmen Beecher brings these tales to vivid life with strikingly realistic illustrations of seldom-seen songwriters, easily recognizable superstars and unforgettable song characters. From late 1940s jukebox hits to present-day chart toppers, Braddock and Beecher offer a magical journey from the songwriter’s pen to the singer’s lips to the listener’s ear.”
Music Lessons
By Bob Wiseman
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Bob Wiseman believes most things in life are universal or, as Lauryn Hill says, everything is everything. Bearing in mind that advice, Wiseman writes about finding the link between music and daily life, like what is common between Mary Margaret O’Hara, hiding around the corner with the lights turned off in order to record herself and his five-year-old insisting he stop hurrying to her dance lesson and marvel at the fluff ball she is blowing toward the ceiling. Each entry is unique and compellingly written, but the themes throughout ― on improvisational music, life lessons, and conflict ― are ubiquitous.”
Adventures In Wonderland: Acid house, Rave & The UK Club Explosion
By Sheryl Garratt
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Adventures In Wonderland is the definitive history of the acid house explosion and its reverberations across popular culture. Out of print for more than 20 years, this new 2020 edition has been updated slightly, with a new introduction and final chapter. One of the few journalists writing about clubs in any detail in the 1980s, Sheryl Garratt is able to interweave her own experiences with hundreds of exclusive interviews with everyone involved. She talks about Ibizan clubs and the Wigan Casino, the key role of reggae and soul sound systems and the one-nighters and illegal warehouse parties of 1980s clubland. Tracing the music back to its roots in New York, Chicago and Detroit, she reports from the underground clubs and offers in-depth interviews with its originators, from Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson and Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk to Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins. By the time acid house turned the world day-glo in 1988, she was editor of The Face, and in the middle of all of it. So this is the acid house and rave explosion, as told by the people who lived it: door staff, dancers and drug dealers; gangsters, blaggers and promoters. From the real stories behind the huge illegal raves of 1989 to commentary by DJs such as Norman Jay, Trevor Nelson, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Graeme Park, Mike Pickering, Carl Cox and Sasha. But this isn’t just a book about the music. It’s about being up for it, out of it, mad for it. It’s about the Paradise Garage in New York, about dancing under the stars in Ibiza or Goa, about the house we built in the UK at Future, Shoom, Spectrum, Clink Street and the Haçienda. It’s about dodging the police to get the party started, and the joy of dancing all night in the British countryside, with thousands of others on the same high. About Madchester, Blackburn, and a new understanding between rock and dance music. And about what came after, from drum’n’bass to the rise of superclubs such as Ministry of Sound, Renaissance and Cream. But most of all, it’s about having the time of your life. Because who wouldn’t want that?”
Ella Fitzgerald
By Jane Kent & Isabel Munoz
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Sometimes called The First Lady of Song, other times The Queen of Jazz, Ella Fitzgerald was one of the most popular singers of the 20th century. She not only worked with the greatest composers and musicians of her time, she won 13 Grammy Awards, received the National Medal of Arts, and the Kennedy Center Honors, and sold millions of records. Learn about the life of this incomparable diva, including her difficult childhood, her first performance in the famed Apollo Theater’s amateur night, and the discrimination she had to overcome.”
Bluffer’s Guide to Rock: Instant Wit & Wisdom
By Eamonn Forde
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Bursting with key facts and ephemera from seven decades of mostly loud music, rock writer and academic Dr. Eamonn Forde’s sharp and absurdly funny Bluffer’s Guide to Rock will provide musical bluffers with all the knowledge and insights needed to hold their own in any rock-centric situation.”
